The Right To
by TheWritingMustache
Summary: He doesn't live, per say, but rather just exists. It's work, work, and more work at a lowly minimum wage job with little of anything in between. He doesn't have time for sleep, or relationships, or that voice in his head telling him to just quit. Life is mundane, but exhausting.
1. The Graveyard Shift on Time

The graveyard shift is probably the most pointless job in the entire world. Particularly for grocery stores. The store closed at midnight, but did that mean they could go home? Oh, no, no it didn't. Doors were locked, and so it was time to do re-stocking, re-arranging, all that fun stuff. And it was just the three of them. Two kids wading their way through college, and him. It was long, and boring, and Alex desperately wished he could just go home and get a couple hours of sleep before he had to wake up again at seven.

Nine to five, and nine to five. In the same store. Because Heller fucking hated him. And because he needed the money and Heller knew that too. Fucking Heller. Ugh. Alex could sit there and explain to the chip aisle all the reasons why he hated his manager and how one day his body was gonna end up in the frozen foods section, right there on the shelf between Lean Cuisine and Weight Watchers. Which, wouldn't be the first time that happened…

What was he even doing here? Alex asked himself this question a lot, especially here neatly putting Lays bags into rows and rows of that godawful yellow color. Six years of schooling, getting a diploma, his masters, and then boom, debt out the wazoo, a life he can barely afford to live. Everything just kinda sucked, and he worked double shifts at the supermarket with a managed from hell. What in the fuck was he even doing-

_POP_

Alex jumped back in surprise as potato chips suddenly rained on his shoes. He popped another bag. The second one this week. He wasn't getting payed enough to be piss at life during work. He threw the chip bag down on the ground and stomped off to get a broom.

**x-X-X-x**

It's five-forty by the time he tromps up the steps to this apartment. The great thing about this time of the morning is that there's no traffic and he can cross roads without worrying about cars. This town has a million blind spots, and it's so easy to nearly get run over by some asshole on his cellphone who's speeding through the neighborhood. Yet, between eight P.M and seven A.M, everybody was off the road and didn't dare get back on it.

They lived in the suburbs, for fuck's sake.

Alex only lived down the road from the store. Which was one of the main roads in town that connect to two other main roads in town. But anywhere Alex wanted to go, he could just get to. Everything was in relative walking distance. Anything farther out, he biked to. Anything farther farther, well…He couldn't afford it anyway.

His apartment was modest, to say the least. Well, maybe not really modest, just a box with a bed and kitchenette, and one little door to the bathroom. Home sweet home. Alex doesn't bother with eating or showering, just throws off his work uniform and flops onto bed. He's dead tired, and the moment his eyes close, he's out like a light.

Seven A.M came here in the form of a blaring alarm clock. Alex punched his clock off the nightstand,

**x-X-X-x**

Going to work in the morning reminds Alex of all the reasons why he actually _likes_ the graveyard shift. At three A.M, there are no customers to deal with, or really any other employees. There is no Heller to deal with. There is no jam pack of customers swarming in to get their morning dose of overpriced shit at the Starbuck's counter. And there is no Elizabeth Greene to sexually harass him.

He was setting out the cases of muffins and assorted pies in the bakery section when he suddenly felt someone smack his ass.

"Ohh All, you been working out?" came Greene's giggle infested voice. He didn't even turn around, just stared mortified at blueberry muffins as Greene bounced away and some little old ladies laughed at him from where they were watching the whole thing happen. All the reasons why he sometimes actually did, like the graveyard shift.

**x-X-X-x**

There is cat that lives around his neighborhood (or as neighborly as a munch of giant rectangles can get). Everyone knows that cat. Everyone calls him Zeus. He is nobody's cat. Nobody outright owns him. And thus, he is the neighborhood cat. No one is actually allowed to own cats or dogs unless they want their rent to shoot through the roof. But there is Zeus, and he is no one's cat, yet at the same time, he is everyone's.

He sleeps on doorsteps or potted plants, on stairs and banisters, at the little playground in the back corner, or on top of cars. He is seen on the rooftops of the buildings, or on top of the garages. Zeus is everywhere, there's nothing that cat can't get to. Everyone helps take care of him. People will leave out bowls of food for him, and the old ladies have boxes and such of blankets left out for him to sleep in (not that Alex has ever actually seen the cat in them).

Whenever someone finds a bruised and battered Zeus on their doorstep, they immediately rush him to one of the many vet clinics around town, one of them being right near where Alex works. People will just happily drop hundreds of dollars on this cat they don't even own.

Zeus likes to sleep on the stairs to his apartment the most. Alex's neighbor's claim it's because they're so alike. Dark haired, blue eyes, generally introverted. Alex is never sure if he should take that as a compliment or not. Zeus, for as loved as he is, isn't really one for affection. He hates kids, and will hiss and spit at the, whenever they come near him. Alex doesn't blame him, he hates kids just as much.

For being the neighborhood cat, Zeus is hardly neighborly. He's nice to you long enough to feed him or get him patched up after being by a car, but after that, you're in his way and he lets you know. There are no other cats around their whole complex because Zeus has probably chased them all off. He's incredibly territorial, and can't even stand people who walk their dogs past the place, even if the dog is across the street.

And it's Alex's stairs and door the damn furball spends the most time out. Alex has not once, ever fed him, or given him anything, nor has taken him to the vet. The most Alex has even done, is sat on top of the garages with him as they picked at some shit in a box Alex nuked in the microwave. It's the nicest he ever gets with Zeus.

But that black ball of fuzz is still waiting for him when Alex arrives home from his day shift. Zeus wraps himself around his ankles as he unlocks the door. But when the door is open, Zeus takes off like a rocket and Alex doesn't see him again for the rest of the day.

**x-X-X-x**

Alex doesn't own much. At least, not much that actually costs a lot of money to have. He has a smartphone and a laptop. That's it. Those are his only means of entertainment and communication. He does not have a TV, he wouldn't want to pay for cable anyway. He doesn't have a car, because the insurance would be unbearable. He owns a bike, however, but he mainly saves it for work because work is a mile away.

He doesn't really see the point in anything more than that. His moments spent at home were too precious to waste. He mainly slept, or ate, or showered between shifts. Alex didn't have time to be concerned about weekly TV shows, or paying for gas, or anything like that. It was a boring, uneventful life that left little room for much else. He just, existed, and went to work. And that was good enough for him.

Except for one particular night when he got off from work, and he checked his messages on his phone while waiting for a stoplight to change. Sudden plans for Sunday were made.

_'Hey, wanna meet up for lunch? -Karen'_

* * *

So I don't have a solid explanation for this one but…It's gonna be styled like The Dumb Roommate Story was, as you can see. It's mostly inspired (like most of my writing these days) by music by bands...

Today's fic is brought to you by "The Right To Go Insane" by Megadeth, which is the main inspiration behind…everything (even yes, the title cause why the hell not). Or at least the base storyline for this fic. Yeah.

Updates whenever I please.


	2. Another Grueling 9-5

Why does no one ever write anything related to Alex's and Karen Parker's relationship? I have an unnecessary amount of unhealthy feels for that ship so now you all must suffer with me.

* * *

Sundays were Alex's one day off, and that was by his own choice. Alex didn't know how to really relax, to just want to sit around and do nothing. It felt like a waste of time when he could so many more things. Sundays were laundry day, and grocery day (not at his store, god fucking forbid he found himself walking into work for food on a Sunday), and cleaning day. And sleeping day, he lived for sleeping day. The one day a week he could totally sleep for twenty-fours straight, the moment he got home from the night shift Sunday morning, to the morning shift on Monday morning.

This particular sunday, he dug up one of his nicer shirts, not too casual but not too formal, and biked himself to a small restaurant just down the road. He hadn't gone out to eat in, probably forever. Alex was very careful about what he spent his money on, and only two people in the world ever convinced him to splurge a little every now and again. And he was meeting one of them for lunch.

He met up with Karen at this little Mexican place just down the road. She cut her hair. It was shorter, more professional, it looked good on her. Alex told her as much when he wrapped her up in a hug when she arrived. And she just laughed at him, and reached up to play with a wayward curl on his own head.

"You could probably do with a cut yourself" Karen teased at him.

They used to date, once upon a time. Back in college, when the only things they had to worry about were acing tests, and having enough money for Chinese food, and trying not to laugh about the Bubonic Plague at three in the morning. Simpler times, before crippling student loans and trying to find people who'll hire them in a shit-tastic recession. They broke up years ago.

It didn't mean they stopped being friends, though. And it didn't mean Alex still didn't miss her. Their little lunches like these, far and few in between, somehow always went the same way for him. He wouldn't talk much, just listen to her instead. Listen to the sound of her voice, and just watch her talk. He just kinda forgets he's out in public with a burrito hanging out of his mouth and sauce dribbling down his chin. He's focused on her, and only her. She's such a wonderful distraction.

"What about you, Alex?"

"….Huh?"

Oh.

"Alex, you weren't paying attention again, were you?"

"I was listening" Alex insists, picking up a napkin to wipe his face. "What do you want me to tell you? My life is practically uneventful compared to yours"

"Yeah?" Karen quirks a brow at him, tucking a hand underneath her chin. "Enlighten me anyway""

And it's probably the most he's talked in about two weeks. No one coaxes pointless conversation out of him than Karen. At work it's just "Hello, can i help you with something?", and "Need anything?", or "Have a nice day", then maybe "Do you need help with that to your car?". That's just only to customers, Alex rarely interacts with his own co-workers. To his own landlord, it's just "I get payed on Friday, I'll have rent in then".

But Karen? He could spend forever talking to Karen. Catching up on each other's lives eventually turns into just wild and random stories about whatever, or heated debates on the newest discoveries science had been making, or what new thing they were trying at the pharmaceutical company Karen worked at.

All too soon, their plates are cleared and they have to leave to avoid loitering any longer than may have already. Alex almost doesn't wanna say goodbye. It's like in one moment, he hates his apartment. He hates the idea of going back to a square box with next to nothing in it. But he lets her go, but not without one less embrace before it's another couple weeks before he sees her again.

"You be good, Alex" Karen says to him before she goes. "Please take care of yourself" and she kisses his cheek.

"No promises"

**x-X-X-x**

_You're so pathetically alone, you know that?_

_To quote old movies, she was the greatest good you ever had._

_Why do you even bother?_

_You're gonna miss her for the rest of your pitiful life._

_She'd never get back together with you, no matter how rich you suddenly become one day._

_You're nothing._

**x-X-X-x**

It takes a couple days to set in, but it came and it sucked. And everyone knew it. For as little as he talked to them, Alex's co-workers knew how he worked by now. They were knew when to really avoid him, when his face is blank and he's stumbling around the store in a haze. When the dark rings around his eyes become darker, and he's getting thin again.

Somehow there's always coffee in the break room. The very presence of that coffee is enough to invoke some emotion, extreme annoyance. The first time he sees it in the morning, Alex just scowls at the pot and stomps away. The second time he sees it, he's growling at it like much like Zeus does towards shih tzus. The third time he sees it, he finally retaliates and pours himself a cup, just to get rid of it so he doesn't have to look at it anymore. And then he's back to being a zombie with a mop.

Alex feels like he should be grateful towards his co-workers for looking out for him. But on these days, they avoid him like he has two heads. Or they'll be jittery around him as if he'll suddenly spout claws and disembowel them.

_You know they're all waiting for it._

_The day you snap._

_The day you become one of those guys on the news._

_They're all scared of you and you know it._

_They know you know._

One day his glare will be intense enough to melt down the whole frozen food section. But hopefully that day will be when he's not working here and Heller won't make him clean it all up.

**x-X-X-x**

"You're a pain in my ass, you know that?"

_Everyone needs a scapegoat._

"You're the bane of my existence"

_You've said worse._

"You're soooo lucky I can't afford pills to shut you out"

_I was so paranoid before._

Arguing with himself isn't healthy. Especially out loud, at two in the morning when he's sitting by himself in the wine aisle. But the bottles had heard this argument before. And so has the yogurt. And the lobster tank behind the meats counter. And so has the ice cream, and the ketchup. The magazine racks were due for a good ranting to.

Talking to himself was completely normal by this point. He only did it during the graveyard shift, and Dan and Taylor were on the opposite side of the store from him. Like, they just knew by now when to avoid him because he was having a heated debate about himself, with himself, and with whatever he was just re-stocking as his audience.

God bless Dan and Taylor, though. Those kids didn't mind working with a mentally unbalanced genius.

**x-X-X-x**

Yes, a genius! He used to have the best grades in school, the absolute best. His work was phenomenal, and everyone in the industry was cramming to get his attention, come work for us, come for us! Then the recession hit and no one could suddenly afford him. And then he couldn't afford life. He just took jobs up wherever he could, and he didn't bother with anything else. The economy got a little better, the field was opening up again…

But by that point, Alex had given up. Sure, there were some jobs opening up in town he easily could have applied for. Then one day, He just popped up in his head and Alex became terrified to even try again.


	3. From Credit Card to Check

He just showed up out of the blue. And it was that day that Alex knew he had finally snapped. How else was he supposed to feel about his own voice in his own head giving him the "Reason You Suck Speech" for everything he did? The answer was he didn't know, so he just assigned himself a gender in his head and went along with life like normal. Or as normal as it could get.

Thankfully this extra voice in his head picked and chose the moments it would suddenly assault him with barbs against his already crippled self-esteem. These moments were usually the night shift, or when Alex was utterly alone, or at home. Very rarely was it during the day around a large group of people. But quite normally, after lunches with his sister, or Karen.

Moments like those were Alex feels human, and He can't stand to let that happen.

But it's not that bad yet. Alex hasn't given Him a name yet, nor is he talking to thin air as if there's another person next to him. He just mumbles arguments under his breath to himself as he re-stocks shelves or nukes a frozen dinner in his microwave. If he could afford it, he'd definitely go see a psychologist and get it checked out because mental diseases are the last things he needs to start developing, especially at thirty-two.

Really other than that, he's positively healthy. Mentally anyway.

**x-X-X-x**

Elizabeth Greene fell in love with him the moment she laid eyes on him. It was Alex's first day of work at the store, a green around the gills bag boy with a useless degree in science. Heller had shoved Alex at her with strict instructions that Greene train him. As if he needed training as a bag boy of all things. But that was also the day Alex's extreme hatred for his manager began.

There were two kinds of unstableness in this world. There was Alex's kind, and then there was Greene's kind. And in comparison to Greene, Alex was arguably more sane than her. The customers generally found her unsettling, with her perpetual wide eyes and broad, toothy grin. It was like she had stolen the Cheshire Cat's face and wore it as a mask.

She didn't know boundaries with people, or at least, not with him. Since day one she was always touching him, getting in his face, and sneaking up behind him to grab at his ass (she said he had amazing glutes, he wasn't sure how to feel about that). Every February fifteenth, she filled his locker with Valentine's cards that all said "Be Mine" or "Sexy Thang" written in her flowery, loopy handwriting. And she bought all of them, simply because "They were just so cheap, I just had to!". Then after she said that, she kissed his cheek a couple dozen times as he stared out over her shoulder with a look on his face that easily read "shoot us both, please".

Green her had her moments, though. She had this incredible sense of when Alex was having one of _those_ weeks, and as such, would sometimes surprise him with treats from the Starbucks counter. And for once, she was smiling normally, and staring down at him in almost motherly manner that Alex otherwise unfamiliar with.

"Hang in there, Hotty McScotty" she'd say to him, and give him a thumbs up as she walked away. Elizabeth was actually the nicest person towards him on the entire staff. It was just kinda too bad that she was completely batshit crazy.

**x-X-X-x**

But James Heller though.

Heller didn't really like anybody. He also didn't really like his job. He was an ex-Marine, honorably discharged, also hit hard in the recession. Went from a respected Marine sergeant, to the eventual manager of a grocery store of all things. He looked incredibly out of place in a in their plain, store shirt and apron. He was a six foot mass of bulging muscles, a face locked in a scowl, and had it out for everyone who worked with him.

For whatever reason, he hated Alex the most. Just, the moment he saw him…It was hate at first sight. First day on the job, and he made one fanatic, and one enemy. He and Heller were forever locked, in eternal combat. Heller couldn't just _fire_ him for not liking him, and Alex couldn't find it in himself to quit his job just to avoid one person. The job market was so rickety right now, Alex didn't want to find out just how hard it was to get hired these days. Among other reasons.

So they just silently hated each other and merely retaliated in the most passive-aggressive manners possible. Quite honestly it was the one exciting thing about coming into work.

**x-X-X-x**

Alex received two surprises when he got home from his first shift. One was his baby sister sitting on the steps to his apartment. The other was the cat being pet and rubbed by said baby sister. Both were a weird sight, because Zeus still didn't like people (except for him of course in some weird way), and what in the actual fuck was his sister doing here?

Yes, Alex loved his little sister dearly and would never turn her away, and cherished every moment spent with her. But he always had to worry whenever she popped up unannounced because it naturally could only mean something had gone terribly wrong. Yet, Dana looked up at him with an excited grin on her face. Dana hopped up to her feet to attack him with hugs.

"Hey kiddo" Alex greets hers, wrapping his arms around her and kissing the top of her head.

"Hey bro!" Dana says back. "Hope you're not busy, caaaause I came to surprise you with my presence. You're welcome"

As if Alex could turn her away. Dana's the only person in the universe that's allowed to unexpectedly pop up at his apartment. She only lived on the other side of town, but like Karen, Alex saw so little of her, his life was mainly focused on the one whole road in town, and everyone he was remotely friendly with didn't live anywhere near it. But these little visits were welcome (but only from his sister)

His apartment always feels smaller when there's another person in it. It was already small to begin with, his bed and dresser literally the only two things that took up most of the room. He didn't even have a table in his tiny kitchen, nor any chairs. Alex generally didn't eat inside anyway, he normally just took a folding beach chair. chucked it on top of the garages, and climbed up to eat up there. But that wasn't something he was about to attempt with Dana.

"I don't have much to feed you with" Alex says to her as he digs through his refrigerator.

"It's fine" Dana laughs, flopping herself on his bed. "I didn't come here to mooch off you. You're the one who should be eating anyway!"

Dana is also the only other person in the universe who can tell him to do anything, and he'd do it. So they just talk as Alex heats himself a microwavable TV dinner, much like his date with Karen, they just catch up on life. Even with a phone and internet, Alex so rarely talks to anybody. He tends to feel guilty for not staying in constant contact with his sister. He normally reasons with himself that he nearly spent his entire childhood with her, it couldn't be that bad that they didn't spend as much time with each other, or didn't talk to each other enough.

But she always ends up here because she misses him, and it leaves a sour taste in his mouth because he knows no matter what, he's still been ignoring her.

"Have you been okay?" Dana suddenly asks him. Alex just stares at her in confusion as he picks through his dinner. "I mean, have you been doing alright? You've been taking care of yourself, haven't you?"

"Of course I have been" Alex reassures her. "I should be asking you the same question, shouldn't I?"

And he forces himself to smile at her. Even now, he can't bring himself to appear weak to her. To tell her how sick he's been, how tired. It's something that's carried over from childhood, when she would look up at him like he was an almighty god, a force to be reckoned with that loved her no matter what. He forgets she's not ten anymore, that she's an adult and can take care of herself, and knows a lie when she hears one. The look she gives him only confirms it.

_How lovely of you…lying to your little sister. Just can't let anyone care about you, huh?_

* * *

Just wanna say, thanks for reading you guys!


End file.
